Re: [WinMac] Problems with PC Floppy Disks

Dan Schwartz(expresso[at]snip.net)
Thu, 24 Sep 1998 21:39:20 -0400

        Actually, the auto-inject floppy mechanisms used up through the Quadra
610/650/800 series were not that picky. However, when Apple unveiled the
A/V Quadras they went to a mechanism - The so-called manual inject
mechanism - that was much pickier with floppies... Especially DD floppies.

        This mechanism was, and still is, used to this day. There was actually a
TIL article about this issue when the A/V Quadras were introduced.

        Cheers!
        Dan

At 01:40 PM 9/24/98 -0500, you wrote:
>>
>>It's not documented, but i've always found that the Mac is a little
>>"pickier" about floppy disks in general. Disks that formatted
>>perfectly fine on a PC were rejected when i tried to reformat
>>them as Macintosh disks.
>>
>>>From this one could maybe postulate the Mac is pickier about bad
>>sectors on a DOS-formatted floppy as well.
>>
>>--Darryl
>>
>>> Since moving to System 8...I think
>>> I finally found a good correlation between PC formatted disks that have
>>> bad sectors and the occurrence of the problem. Any floppy disk - 720KB or
>>> 1.44MB - that has zero bad sectors works fine with System 8's PC
>>> Exchange; but when I use a PC formatted disk that has bad sectors crazy
>>> problems usually occur. \
>>>
>>> Has anyone else found this? Is it a documented problem?
>>
>
>Yes! I have exactly the same problem on my powermac 8600/250. I know my
>floppy drive is okay, because I've put it through its paces with TechTool
>Pro 2 (read/write tests).
>
>In my case it's the reverse situation - I need to reformat mac floppies
>as pc floppies to send pc files to clients. I finally figured out that I
>needed to run each one through Norton Disk Doctor first -- if it passed
>the test, then I could reformat it as a pc floppy (although oddly enough,
>sometimes I need to do it twice -- the first time it claims it's a
>damaged disk, then it happily reformats it on the second time). But if
>there were any bad blocks -- no matter how often I tried to reformat it,
>no go.
>
>This is in System 8.0. I don't recall having the same problem so much in
>System 7.6.1.
>
>My Quadra 650 in System 7.1, on the other hand, happily reformats any
>floppy I stick into its disk drive.... including ones rejected by the
>fussy 8600. The quadra doesn't care if the original disk is pc or mac
>formatted or unformatted, it just chugs along and reformats it the way
>you want it. Slow but sure -- actually, I've always preferred to format
>pc floppies in the mac environment (both on my quadra and SE/30) for use
>on a "real" or "virtual" pc, simply because it's always been so much
>easier.
>
>The versions of PC Exchange might be a little different, since they come
>with the system for 7.6.1 and 8.0 (I had my own copy of MacLink Plus for
>the quadra in System 7.1).
>
>I'm certainly glad to know it isn't just ME!
>
> Peace, Cathy Flick cathyf@earlham.edu
>
>P.S. Be aware of an odd conflict with PC Exchange -- I found that it's
>incompatible with Apple's latest version of Close View for some peculiar
>reason. I never had any trouble with the old version on my quadra.
>
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>
>

        Yours truly,
        Dan Schwartz

        Dan's Macintosh Consulting
        Suite 1306
        1840 Frontage Road
        Cherry Hill, NJ 08034-2205

        609-795-8965

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